The Bright Yellow

A girl wakes up to discover that everything has turned yellow

Bright as the sun, a color stands out from the rest. That’s yellow. Everywhere I go, I see yellow. I looked in a store in France the other day, and then I said, “Hey, look. The store’s all yellow.” All the clothes were yellow: yellow boxers, yellow sweaters, and yellow pants. Yellow sandals and dark-yellow mugs with brightly colored cheese painted on the cup for decor. The walls were yellow.

We walked into a yellow café, and my mom ordered a blue cupcake, even though it was yellow to me. It was delicious. The creamy, rich frosting hit my lips, melting in my watering mouth. But the smell—that cupcake, it smelled weird. It smelled very different from a normal yellow lemon cupcake. Mom and I walked out the door after I had eaten everything down to the crumbs. I opened the bulky, hefty door, and a frigid breeze hit me. I stepped outside, onto the yellow pavement, and I narrowed my eyes toward the shops scattered across the street.

Everything on the street was yellow. The shops were yellow. Even though my mom said that the walls were grey, they looked yellow to me.

After hours of shopping, Mom started to get worried to the point where she took me to see the eye doctor. When we walked in, I asked the lady at the front desk why everything was yellow, including everyone in this building. She just took my hand, and we raced through the maze of yellow. We came across a large yellow door labeled “Dr. Johnson.” Under the label was a message scrawled, “Come on in!” The woman reached for the door handle and tilted it downward. The door clicked open, revealing the tight room. The woman ushered us inside. The doctor and his room were a garish shade of yellow. I wanted to scream, but I sat down in the chair for the doctor to examine me.

After the eye exam, the doctor said I was colorblind, and the only color I could see was yellow.

I had a yellow life after that. I went home, depressed and let down. I could feel my body go numb. The only thing I could do was sleep. I dreamt in yellow and slept for days to come.

I woke up out of my coma and shuffled to the door. When I opened the massive door, I saw the flowers beginning to grow.

Then, the oddest, most unexpected, extraordinary thing happened to me. I started to float into the air with my old, chipped yellow boots of lace and velvet. I floated and floated. I flew and flew up into the sky. Luckily, a plane zoomed by, so when the wing passed by, I grabbed it. I suddenly realized that if I jumped off the plane, my shoes could make a soft impact into a sea of yellow.

So that’s what I did. I jumped and landed in my mom’s arms. It hurt. But at least I was safe and sound. In my mother’s yellow arms.